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Wow. To me the point of code has always been the crazy ideas and playing around. I love to create just for me and every once in a while for others is ok too. If

Wow. To me the point of code has always been the crazy ideas and playing around. I love to create just for me and every once in a while for others is ok too. If you only think of code as 'a tool to build useful things' and everything else as wasted then sure, this is the philosophy for you. However, creating a bunch of random not going to follow up on it but I explored and played moments seems like a plus and not a negative to me.

DJBunnies 5mo ago
Playing with legos is fine if you can afford them.
mrkeen 5mo ago
OP paid a machine to have those moments instead of him.
- hparadiz 5mo ago
  As opposed to the old days when people would just blindly copy/paste random shit from Stackoverflow? Ya'll need to stop with this cope. It's not a good look.
  - JoshTriplett 5mo ago
    > As opposed to the old days when people would just blindly copy/paste random shit from Stackoverflow? Many of the people who are complaining about AI vibecoding today also didn't blindly copy/paste from StackOverflow in the past.
    - hparadiz 5mo ago
      I'm sure they were blindly accepting the Assembly coming out of the compiler.
      - skydhash 5mo ago
        Where do you think those bugs reports for gcc and others come from? Some people do look at the assembly coming out of the compilers. Currently the openbsd mailing list for port is currently going through a clang update and one of the main point is looking at all the packages that failed to build. I even took a long look at the usb stack and the audio subsystem of OpenBSD because of an issue I was having with my DAC.
        hparadiz 5mo ago
        I literally do packaging for a living and you are misunderstanding my point. Most people just take a binary and run it. There's no analysis of the assembly code. You might profile it and bench it after the fact but no one is sitting there looking at the assembly line by line unless there's a very very good reason and frankly LLMs are better at that type of investigative work. I know because I've been investigating some curious 1 in 100,000 segfaults recently and guess what? It took an LLM to build a tool to let us even hit that bug because it was basically impossible to do by hand and no one in the before times would have sat down to write the tool cause we would not have time so we would have just accepted that 1 in 100,000 requests are segfaulting. At least now I can actually fix the problem.
        skydhash 5mo ago
        What's the reliability of compilers this day? How likely for a bug to be in your code and not in the compiler? I think it's close to 99.99... So when you have a bug and a core dump, you can quickly load it in debugger, see the stack frame and then theorize a model for the bug to happen. If after verifying the source and having complete confidence that it's good, then you start looking at the assembly, most likely while single stepping with the debugger. But you rarely get to that point, because 99.99... it's your code. That reliability is what AI tooling is lacking. It's exhausting monitoring the output because errors can be as simple as a minus character or the wrong comparison operator.
        hparadiz 5mo ago
  - throwatdem12311 5mo ago
    Once you reach a certain skill level you really didn’t ever visit SO anymore. I basically just live in Postgres, Redis, Ruby and Rails documentation. Still do.
    - hparadiz 5mo ago
      SO was just an example. If you try to tell me you've never copied/pasted code before I know you are lying.
      - VorpalWay 5mo ago
        I don't think I was ever able to straight copy and paste from SO, everything needs adaptation, and code can often be simplified. And you need to understand your code. SO was useful, but nothing could be used copy pasted. Maybe this is not the case if you are doing a dozen throwaway websites, but for anything serious that is an absolute requirement. I work in hard realtime safety critical code, think things like brake controllers, medical devices, auto pilots, etc. In my case industrial control systems. You need to have full control and documentation for your development process.
      - ygjb 5mo ago
        I agree with the notion it's an age thing, but not because I am old, but because the tools are different. When I was learning to program as a kid I blindly 'copied and pasted' from computer magazine. I typed everything in, not understanding what I was doing, and made mistakes. Then came the tedious problem of figuring why the code didn't work. What was the syntax error? Why was it wrong? Why did the computer crash when I poked the wrong memory address? I learned to debug and built comprehension by typing it in, and built it as a practice. Later in life and career I learned the value of transcription rather than copying and pasting because it at the very least forced me to read and write what I was copying, and built the base and familiarity I needed to learn from what I was copying. That extends to how I use AI today. I use AI tooling to explore the concept of what I am building, use spec based designs to build solid outlines, and scope individual coding sessions, so that even when I use AI to build it, I have read, edited, and managed the design, and when I run into parts that I don't consider boilerplate I treat it the same way, transcribe what was attempted to understand why it was failing, and make sure I understand what the AI is doing that I haven't done before.
  - Alupis 5mo ago
    I don't think those two things are comparable, really. With SO copy/paste, you still were undertaking the mental exercise (and reward) of thinking through hard problems, researching solutions, and assembling it yourself. With AI, you literally outsource most or all of that. The way some people "vibe code", they barely are engaged with any of that process, if at all. I think about it like I do video games: it's a lot of fun to play them, and while it can be interesting to watch someone else play, it's just not the same.
  - michaelchisari 5mo ago
    Anyone worth their salt looked down on copy/paste from Stackoverflow, let alone blindly doing so. Where does this idea come from that good programmers were ever cool with that?
    - ses1984 5mo ago
      Some things are easier to verify than they are to solve, right? So if you see an answer on stack overflow, read it, comprehend it, and you can pretty easily mentally verify the correctness to a sufficient degree of confidence… I guess I’m not worth my salt.
    - yoyohello13 5mo ago
      > Where does this idea come from that good programmers were ever cool with that? r/programminghumor mostly. It was always tongue in cheek, but people took it too seriously. However, the number of times I’ve gone over to help a colleague and realized they were trying to copy/paste code from SO, without even reading the context of the thread is baffling. Like, why did you expect it to work in the first place? I really try to be humble and not make assumptions about people competencies but it’s really hard to have those experiences and not think the average programmer is just an idiot. It’s no wonder AI is helping people when this was the baseline.
      - hparadiz 5mo ago
        Setting aside code examples from the internets for a moment. I have seen entire multi million dollar operations running off the most horrible PHP spaghetti nonsense. The base line is far below any floor you are thinking of.
        yoyohello13 5mo ago
        Oh, I'm aware. You should see the legacy PHP intranet at my org.
    - lelanthran 5mo ago
      > Where does this idea come from that good programmers were ever cool with that? Copium from folk who were never developers before, but who now want the badge anyway. Too bad the same badge can be given out to a bright 12 year old who doesn't know the difference between a variable and a type. I suppose I'd have to admit to not being a "developer" anymore, because developers in the age of AI won't know how to write code. Perhaps I can still hold on to the label "programmer" for a little while longer.
  - kerkeslager 5mo ago
    I started coding before Stack Overflow existed, and those were the days when coding was most fun for me. Learning HyperCard Basic from the manual that came with the computer was so full of joyful moments. Stack Overflow had it's heyday, but by the time AI came around I already wasn't using it. Stack Overflow for a long time has been inundated with the kind of people who think everything is the XY problem[1], and arrogantly assume they know what your problem is better than you do. Stack Overflow was all-but-useless for at least 5 years before AI broke into the public eye. [1] https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/
- onel 4mo ago
  Yeah that's a good point. With these side projects, the pleasure is in the tinkering, and just playing around with an idea
techblueberry 5mo ago
It’s not binary, it’s a plus until it’s not. I agree with the author that the problem is “what happens if code is free” can change the incentives so much you forget why you were there in the first place. You’re very reasonable response may be “well, why don’t you just do more of what you want to do and less of what you don’t want to do” but that’s not how incentives work. You could talk about revealed preferences, and how obviously if this person did these things maybe that’s obviously what he wanted to do. And great, feel good about that. There’s an uncomfortable reality for most of us normies (maybe not popular with the libertarian HN crowd) that an increase in freedom can make it much more difficult to find meaning and purpose. Friction can be good actually. I do theorize that this is one of the mechanisms by which productivity could be tanked by AI.
- skydhash 5mo ago
  That reminds me of a "We get Letters" by Michael W. Lucas[0](FreeBSD Journal) The most important point was: It’s uncomfortable. The discomfort is the point. Pain is the greatest teacher, but nobody willingly attends her classes. Learning what's important is only truly possible after loosing it (or not having it in the first place). Having anything granted to us does not prepare for when it's taken away and it's also blinds us on what other possible paths there is. [0]: https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based-edition/laptop-desktop/we-get-letters-7/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based...
dgellow 4mo ago
What did the author learn through their experience? They learned how to get AI to generate those projects, but that's pretty much it. With such a list of side projects you would learn just SO MUCH by doing it yourself, which IMHO is the whole point of playing around and what makes the experience satisfying. Here they get the artifacts, but nothing else.

DJBunnies 5mo ago

Playing with legos is fine if you can afford them.

mrkeen 5mo ago

OP paid a machine to have those moments instead of him.

hparadiz 5mo ago
As opposed to the old days when people would just blindly copy/paste random shit from Stackoverflow? Ya'll need to stop with this cope. It's not a good look.
- JoshTriplett 5mo ago
  > As opposed to the old days when people would just blindly copy/paste random shit from Stackoverflow? Many of the people who are complaining about AI vibecoding today also didn't blindly copy/paste from StackOverflow in the past.
  - hparadiz 5mo ago
    I'm sure they were blindly accepting the Assembly coming out of the compiler.
    - skydhash 5mo ago
      Where do you think those bugs reports for gcc and others come from? Some people do look at the assembly coming out of the compilers. Currently the openbsd mailing list for port is currently going through a clang update and one of the main point is looking at all the packages that failed to build. I even took a long look at the usb stack and the audio subsystem of OpenBSD because of an issue I was having with my DAC.
      - hparadiz 5mo ago
        I literally do packaging for a living and you are misunderstanding my point. Most people just take a binary and run it. There's no analysis of the assembly code. You might profile it and bench it after the fact but no one is sitting there looking at the assembly line by line unless there's a very very good reason and frankly LLMs are better at that type of investigative work. I know because I've been investigating some curious 1 in 100,000 segfaults recently and guess what? It took an LLM to build a tool to let us even hit that bug because it was basically impossible to do by hand and no one in the before times would have sat down to write the tool cause we would not have time so we would have just accepted that 1 in 100,000 requests are segfaulting. At least now I can actually fix the problem.
        skydhash 5mo ago
        What's the reliability of compilers this day? How likely for a bug to be in your code and not in the compiler? I think it's close to 99.99... So when you have a bug and a core dump, you can quickly load it in debugger, see the stack frame and then theorize a model for the bug to happen. If after verifying the source and having complete confidence that it's good, then you start looking at the assembly, most likely while single stepping with the debugger. But you rarely get to that point, because 99.99... it's your code. That reliability is what AI tooling is lacking. It's exhausting monitoring the output because errors can be as simple as a minus character or the wrong comparison operator.
        hparadiz 5mo ago
- throwatdem12311 5mo ago
  Once you reach a certain skill level you really didn’t ever visit SO anymore. I basically just live in Postgres, Redis, Ruby and Rails documentation. Still do.
  - hparadiz 5mo ago
    SO was just an example. If you try to tell me you've never copied/pasted code before I know you are lying.
    - VorpalWay 5mo ago
      I don't think I was ever able to straight copy and paste from SO, everything needs adaptation, and code can often be simplified. And you need to understand your code. SO was useful, but nothing could be used copy pasted. Maybe this is not the case if you are doing a dozen throwaway websites, but for anything serious that is an absolute requirement. I work in hard realtime safety critical code, think things like brake controllers, medical devices, auto pilots, etc. In my case industrial control systems. You need to have full control and documentation for your development process.
    - ygjb 5mo ago
      I agree with the notion it's an age thing, but not because I am old, but because the tools are different. When I was learning to program as a kid I blindly 'copied and pasted' from computer magazine. I typed everything in, not understanding what I was doing, and made mistakes. Then came the tedious problem of figuring why the code didn't work. What was the syntax error? Why was it wrong? Why did the computer crash when I poked the wrong memory address? I learned to debug and built comprehension by typing it in, and built it as a practice. Later in life and career I learned the value of transcription rather than copying and pasting because it at the very least forced me to read and write what I was copying, and built the base and familiarity I needed to learn from what I was copying. That extends to how I use AI today. I use AI tooling to explore the concept of what I am building, use spec based designs to build solid outlines, and scope individual coding sessions, so that even when I use AI to build it, I have read, edited, and managed the design, and when I run into parts that I don't consider boilerplate I treat it the same way, transcribe what was attempted to understand why it was failing, and make sure I understand what the AI is doing that I haven't done before.
- Alupis 5mo ago
  I don't think those two things are comparable, really. With SO copy/paste, you still were undertaking the mental exercise (and reward) of thinking through hard problems, researching solutions, and assembling it yourself. With AI, you literally outsource most or all of that. The way some people "vibe code", they barely are engaged with any of that process, if at all. I think about it like I do video games: it's a lot of fun to play them, and while it can be interesting to watch someone else play, it's just not the same.
- michaelchisari 5mo ago
  Anyone worth their salt looked down on copy/paste from Stackoverflow, let alone blindly doing so. Where does this idea come from that good programmers were ever cool with that?
  - ses1984 5mo ago
    Some things are easier to verify than they are to solve, right? So if you see an answer on stack overflow, read it, comprehend it, and you can pretty easily mentally verify the correctness to a sufficient degree of confidence… I guess I’m not worth my salt.
  - yoyohello13 5mo ago
    > Where does this idea come from that good programmers were ever cool with that? r/programminghumor mostly. It was always tongue in cheek, but people took it too seriously. However, the number of times I’ve gone over to help a colleague and realized they were trying to copy/paste code from SO, without even reading the context of the thread is baffling. Like, why did you expect it to work in the first place? I really try to be humble and not make assumptions about people competencies but it’s really hard to have those experiences and not think the average programmer is just an idiot. It’s no wonder AI is helping people when this was the baseline.
    - hparadiz 5mo ago
      Setting aside code examples from the internets for a moment. I have seen entire multi million dollar operations running off the most horrible PHP spaghetti nonsense. The base line is far below any floor you are thinking of.
      - yoyohello13 5mo ago
        Oh, I'm aware. You should see the legacy PHP intranet at my org.
  - lelanthran 5mo ago
    > Where does this idea come from that good programmers were ever cool with that? Copium from folk who were never developers before, but who now want the badge anyway. Too bad the same badge can be given out to a bright 12 year old who doesn't know the difference between a variable and a type. I suppose I'd have to admit to not being a "developer" anymore, because developers in the age of AI won't know how to write code. Perhaps I can still hold on to the label "programmer" for a little while longer.
- kerkeslager 5mo ago
  I started coding before Stack Overflow existed, and those were the days when coding was most fun for me. Learning HyperCard Basic from the manual that came with the computer was so full of joyful moments. Stack Overflow had it's heyday, but by the time AI came around I already wasn't using it. Stack Overflow for a long time has been inundated with the kind of people who think everything is the XY problem[1], and arrogantly assume they know what your problem is better than you do. Stack Overflow was all-but-useless for at least 5 years before AI broke into the public eye. [1] https://xyproblem.info/ https://xyproblem.info/
onel 4mo ago
Yeah that's a good point. With these side projects, the pleasure is in the tinkering, and just playing around with an idea

techblueberry 5mo ago

It’s not binary, it’s a plus until it’s not. I agree with the author that the problem is “what happens if code is free” can change the incentives so much you forget why you were there in the first place. You’re very reasonable response may be “well, why don’t you just do more of what you want to do and less of what you don’t want to do” but that’s not how incentives work. You could talk about revealed preferences, and how obviously if this person did these things maybe that’s obviously what he wanted to do. And great, feel good about that. There’s an uncomfortable reality for most of us normies (maybe not popular with the libertarian HN crowd) that an increase in freedom can make it much more difficult to find meaning and purpose. Friction can be good actually. I do theorize that this is one of the mechanisms by which productivity could be tanked by AI.

skydhash 5mo ago
That reminds me of a "We get Letters" by Michael W. Lucas[0](FreeBSD Journal) The most important point was: It’s uncomfortable. The discomfort is the point. Pain is the greatest teacher, but nobody willingly attends her classes. Learning what's important is only truly possible after loosing it (or not having it in the first place). Having anything granted to us does not prepare for when it's taken away and it's also blinds us on what other possible paths there is. [0]: https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based-edition/laptop-desktop/we-get-letters-7/ https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-based...

dgellow 4mo ago

What did the author learn through their experience? They learned how to get AI to generate those projects, but that's pretty much it. With such a list of side projects you would learn just SO MUCH by doing it yourself, which IMHO is the whole point of playing around and what makes the experience satisfying. Here they get the artifacts, but nothing else.